The other wonders that the story tells about this food are teachings for the life of virtue. It says that everyone shares equally in the food, with no difference according to the strength of those gathering it: no one receives more than he needs, and no one receives less. In my understanding, this is advice given to everyone who obtains the necessities of life from material things: do not go beyond the limits of need. We should remember that nature sets the same measure of food for everyone—the amount needed for each day.
Even if someone prepares many times more than he needs for the day, the stomach has no natural ability to exceed its own limits or expand along with the abundance prepared for it. As the story says, the one who gathered much had no excess—for he has nowhere to put what is beyond his need—and the one who gathered little had no lack, because his need adjusted itself to what was available.
When the excess that has been stored away turns into worms, the passage almost cries out to the greedy. Whatever exceeds our need, when it is hoarded out of this desire for more, becomes a worm for the one who stored it on the following day—that is, in the life to come. Anyone who hears of this worm will surely understand it as the worm that does not die, brought to life by greed.
The fact that what is stored remains good only for the Sabbath, without decaying, teaches us this: our desire for more should be directed only toward things that do not decay when gathered. What we gather in this way becomes useful to us when we pass beyond the preparation of this present life and enter the rest from such activity after death. The day before the Sabbath is itself a preparation for the Sabbath and is also called “Preparation.” This present life is that day of preparation, in which we make ready for ourselves the things of the life to come.
In that coming life none of the activities now permitted to us is carried out—no farming, trade, military service, or any other pursuit of this life. Resting completely from such work, we receive the fruits of the seeds we have sown during our present life. Those fruits are incorruptible if the seeds of our life were good, but corrupting and destructive if the cultivation of this life produced that kind of crop. For Scripture says, “The one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit, but the one who sows to the flesh will reap corruption from the flesh.”
Strictly speaking, only preparation for what is better deserves the name “Preparation,” and the law itself confirms this because what is stored up through it does not decay. The opposite is neither real preparation nor rightly called preparation. The loss of good things should be called not preparation but a failure to prepare. So the story lays down only the preparation that leads toward what is better, leaving sensible readers to infer the opposite from what it omits.
When an army is being mustered, the commander first supplies the soldiers with their rations and only then gives the signal for battle. In the same way, the soldiers of virtue first receive their mystical ration and then go to war against the foreigners, with Joshua, Moses’ successor, leading the battle.
Do you see the order in which the argument proceeds? As long as a person is weak and has been brought low by evil tyranny, he does not defend himself against the enemy, because he cannot. Another fights on behalf of the weak, striking the enemy with blow after blow. But once he has been freed from slavery to those who held him and tasted the sweetness brought by the wood, he rests from his labor among the palms, learns the mystery of the rock, and shares in the heavenly food. Then he no longer fights the enemy by another’s hand. Having passed beyond childhood and reached the vigor of youth, he himself grapples with his opponents. His commander is no longer Moses, the servant of God, but God Himself, whom Moses served. The law, given at first as a type and shadow of things to come, does not enter the real battle. The commander is the One who fulfills the law and takes Moses’ place—Jesus, whose coming was proclaimed beforehand because Joshua, the commander in that earlier battle, bore the same Greek name.
When the people see Moses’ hands raised, they gain the upper hand over the enemy in battle; when they see them lowered, they begin to give way. Moses raising his hands on high signifies understanding the law through its highest meanings. His bending them down toward the earth signifies a low and earthbound interpretation of the law and an observance limited to the letter.
When Moses’ hands grew heavy, the priest, aided by a relative, held them up. This too fits the pattern we have been tracing. True priesthood, through the divine word joined to it, lifts the law’s workings back toward the heights after the weight of Jewish understanding has cast them down to earth. It also supports the law with the stone when it begins to fall, so that the law stands upright in the form of the outstretched hands and shows those who look at it its true aim.
For those who are able to see it, the mystery of the cross is especially visible in the law. This is why the Gospel says that not one iota or stroke will pass away from the law. Through these words it points to the horizontal line and the vertical line by which the shape of the cross is drawn. When this same shape was seen in Moses—who is understood as representing the law—it became a trophy and the cause of victory for those who looked upon it.